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We have a brand new state of the art 5,000 seat arena, we are less than 2 weeks from hosting one of the elite proram in the nation and I receive this email/facebook post 3 times per week: BGSU AthleticsTom Izzo and the Michigan State Spartans visit the Stroh Center on December 18th. Select individual game tickets are now on sale through the Stroh Center Box Office. The best seating options are still available through the 3-game mini plan. Call 877-BGSU-TICKET­ to secure your seat today! WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There is a serious issue with the direction of this program yet nobody seems to be A. Willing to acknowlede it or B. Do anything about it. I had a conflict Monday night that I could have avoided to attend the game, but after suffering through watching Louis Orr impersonate a division I level basketball coach the previous Saturday I felt I needed a rest. I caught the end of the game on radio and thought to myself..."How typical of this program....look utterly inept on Saturday then bounce back and play adequately enough to win the next night". And so it goes.....Orr being just marginal enough to win just enough games to just barely keep his job so we get treated to just an average, okay, middle of the road, barely watchable program in a beautiful new arena with absolutely 0% life in it. Mr. AD, have you EVER visited Athens which is in between noplace and the boondocks, and walked inside the Convo on a game night? I can't tell you how envious I am of that environment. So why is what we have going inside the Stroh Center good enough for you? Perhaps I'm not smart enough to understand why this continues to go on.

bg1984 wrote: Mr. AD, have you EVER visited Athens which is in between noplace and the boondocks, and walked inside the Convo on a game night? I can't tell you how envious I am of that environment. So why is what we have going inside the Stroh Center good enough for you? Perhaps I'm not smart enough to understand why this continues to go on.

What is the difference? Why isn't that the community there has embraced OU basketball and ours hasn't? I am curious at people's thoughts. I played basketball in NWO (not well). And we would go play all around and hardly have anyone there, yet everytime we got to Margaretta no matter what the place was full for the JV game. What makes it so different at the OU's, Margaretta etc. The product isn't really that much better. The connection seems to be. How do you build that connection. Thats what BG needs to figure out.

At this point I'm envious of 2 things....1) What 75 points looks like. 2) College Basketball without an Erger or a Kraus.

OU had over 12000 people for a game earlier this year vs. Portland. Granted they sold tickets for a dollar for promotional reasons. But 12000 fans! That is more than we usually get for football. If we had 12000 fans show for a basketball game we would need to turn away 8000 of them.
Everyone and their brother has tried to determine what the mind set difference is. There are probably a combination of several reasons.
This year they (OU) have some good players, as they did last year. (Sweet 16) We have not made NCAAs since 1968 = interest has eroded away over the years. When we do have decent teams they are overlooked by NCAA and then get the shaft by playing on the road in the NIT. It has proven to be a loosing battle.

Well we currently have our worst coach since the 1970's, and it isn't close.

guest44 wrote:Well we currently have our worst coach since the 1970's, and it isn't close.

Oh God....................I smell a "Who's been the best BGSU Men's Basketball Coach since 1970" thread coming on from Globe..................

guest44 wrote:At this point I'm envious of 2 things....1) What 75 points looks like. 2) College Basketball without an Erger or a Kraus.

Agreed! And thankfully, we'll at least get #2 next season. At least it's something to look forward to with the state of this program.

Best basketball coach since the 1970s? Jim Larranaga.
recruited well, decent record, in fact he beat MSU at the Breslin Center one year, great radio presence (broke down and analyzed a game very well) has done well since leaving: took an 11 seed to Final Four, Is doing a nice job in Miami.
How many other coaches stayed in bb upon leaving? I don't think any held significant coaching jobs after BG.

zete wrote:OU had over 12000 people for a game earlier this year vs. Portland. Granted they sold tickets for a dollar for promotional reasons. But 12000 fans! That is more than we usually get for football. If we had 12000 fans show for a basketball game we would need to turn away 8000 of them.
Everyone and their brother has tried to determine what the mind set difference is. There are probably a combination of several reasons.
This year they (OU) have some good players, as they did last year. (Sweet 16) We have not made NCAAs since 1968 = interest has eroded away over the years. When we do have decent teams they are overlooked by NCAA and then get the shaft by playing on the road in the NIT. It has proven to be a loosing battle.

Well lets see. There isn't anything to do an hour and a half in every direction from Athens, they don't fight any other schools for exposure or ticket dollars. They are coming off a sweet 16 birth, they returned basically their entire team, new high profile coach, 1 dollar tickets, they fill 1/4 of the arena with students, it was dads weekend (one of their biggest weekends of the year). Oh and they've been pretty good almost every year since the late 90s. It's not a hard formula to figure out, win and people will show up.

It's amazing what winning will do. OU football had something like 900 season ticket holders in the early 2000s. This year they led the conference in attendance. It's pretty simple what changed....they started winning.

Within an hour of BG you have, Detroit, Toledo, Michigan, and Eastern Michigan, 4 division 1 programs. Then you have the Mud Hens, Tigers, Pistons, Lions, Red Wings, 5 pro sports teams fighting for entertainment dollars. That's a lot of sports entertainment options, fighting for dollars in a pretty small market. Couple that with a lot of your alumni not staying in the Toledo area, you are going to have a hard to time drawing crowds for a program that hasn't had success in 10+ years.

Is that you, GC?

I don't think that is Greg Fundraiser. Never in those paragraphs of excuses was the term "directionally" used.

Falcon137 wrote:

zete wrote:OU had over 12000 people for a game earlier this year vs. Portland. Granted they sold tickets for a dollar for promotional reasons. But 12000 fans! That is more than we usually get for football. If we had 12000 fans show for a basketball game we would need to turn away 8000 of them.
Everyone and their brother has tried to determine what the mind set difference is. There are probably a combination of several reasons.
This year they (OU) have some good players, as they did last year. (Sweet 16) We have not made NCAAs since 1968 = interest has eroded away over the years. When we do have decent teams they are overlooked by NCAA and then get the shaft by playing on the road in the NIT. It has proven to be a loosing battle.

Well lets see. There isn't anything to do an hour and a half in every direction from Athens, they don't fight any other schools for exposure or ticket dollars. They are coming off a sweet 16 birth, they returned basically their entire team, new high profile coach, 1 dollar tickets, they fill 1/4 of the arena with students, it was dads weekend (one of their biggest weekends of the year). Oh and they've been pretty good almost every year since the late 90s. It's not a hard formula to figure out, win and people will show up.

It's amazing what winning will do. OU football had something like 900 season ticket holders in the early 2000s. This year they led the conference in attendance. It's pretty simple what changed....they started winning.

Within an hour of BG you have, Detroit, Toledo, Michigan, and Eastern Michigan, 4 division 1 programs. Then you have the Mud Hens, Tigers, Pistons, Lions, Red Wings, 5 pro sports teams fighting for entertainment dollars. That's a lot of sports entertainment options, fighting for dollars in a pretty small market. Couple that with a lot of your alumni not staying in the Toledo area, you are going to have a hard to time drawing crowds for a program that hasn't had success in 10+ years.

Will please give give my tired ass a damned break??? There isn't any more to do in BG than there is in Athens.

The idea that Toledo and Eastern Michigan are taking basketball fans away from BG is laughable. I'd argue the Lights Before Christmas and the Levis Commons Cinemas provide a better excuse for nobody caring about BG basketball. People don't know and don't care when they play, and that attitude won't change with this coach.

guest44 wrote:The idea that Toledo and Eastern Michigan are taking basketball fans away from BG is laughable. I'd argue the Lights Before Christmas and the Levis Commons Cinemas provide a better excuse for nobody caring about BG basketball. People don't know and don't care when they play, and that attitude won't change with this coach.

No one is deciding between a Mud Hens game and a BG basketball game. Also I wonder what the population difference is in SE Ohio v NW Ohio SE Michigan.

Globetrotter wrote:

guest44 wrote:The idea that Toledo and Eastern Michigan are taking basketball fans away from BG is laughable. I'd argue the Lights Before Christmas and the Levis Commons Cinemas provide a better excuse for nobody caring about BG basketball. People don't know and don't care when they play, and that attitude won't change with this coach.

No one is deciding between a Mud Hens game and a BG basketball game. Also I wonder what the population difference is in SE Ohio v NW Ohio SE Michigan.

It's probably huge. The difference being OU sporting events is all there is in SE Ohio.